Posts Tagged ‘Dead Mans Curve’

I think I’ve always been fascinated by engines and car culture. I remember in grade school flipping through Hot Rod magazines in the Library. It was before the teachers or anyone else realized the ads in the back were filled with sexual double entendres on the t-shirts worn by barely-clad ladies.

Still, I was quite fascinated by the flames, the machines, the engines and the sexy lines of custom cars. It was the 70s and muscle cars were not only being customized but they were rolling off the factory lines. I can’t cop to the fact of knowing much about cars, I was never a wrenchhead. I frequented local auto-ramas and was mostly lost in the paintwork. I think over time though I got a feel for car makers and more or less the style or year the car came out. But it was no where near my proficiency in detecting films.

As cool as Star Wars was, I liked both American Graffiti and Corvette Summer about the same. I had more Hot Wheels and Matchbox cars than I could count, and spent endless hours trying to recreate the actual physics of crashing cars. When Smokey and the Bandit came around…I lost my mind. The black and gold Trans Am was the new standard.

And even though I was getting old enough to drive I think my love for cars dwindled. The DeLorean had come out and while that was cool, I think it was the Chrysler K-Car that pretty much killed it for me. I had no interest in anything new for a very long time. And the further we got away from the 70s the worse it got. Every car company had their version of what everyone else was doing and nobody was making their mark. It wasn’t until years later with the Lotus and the Vipers and Audi TTs did I take notice again, but then I became more practical in my transportation needs. Maybe that’s a good thing. I might have ended up like James Dean.

Anyway, here are a couple of covers that I was playing around for Dead Man’s Curve.

Last year I started a new project called DEAD MAN’S CURVE. It’s a “Sunshine Noir” that my friend B. Clay Moore wanted to collaborate on. I was super-excited because I’m a huge fan of the history of California culture. It covered everything from surfing, to custom cars, motorcycle gangs and racing…and a little FBI intrigue to boot. I’d had the script for a year before I actually was able to start in on it. Because there were no less than 25 characters it required a lot of reference gathering and concepts to come up with and about three months of pre-production before I even started on sequentials.

Even then, I wanted to try something new. Since I was the one who had to color it I really wanted to make a statement, to break from what I’d been doing on Braun for so long. Right or wrong I had a few test pieces I did before I landed on an amalgam of influences from 1960s illustrators.

I think one of the main reasons why I chose this direction was it’d keep my interest and I could try several different approaches. It was an effort to break with tradition and play more. Coloring comics the same way day-in day-out is not entirely satisfying. I think treating each page as an illustration that bends and reacts to the story is far more interesting to me…and hopefully the reader.

Anyway, we pitched it around got some nice comments overall but no real traction on publishing it. I finished the first issue in good faith, because I really like the concept. Maybe sometime in the near future we’ll offer the first issue but for now you can check out more pages here.